A Challenge Met - The Beadswap Reveal

A couple of months ago, I signed up to participate in a bead swap challenge called the Bead Soup Double Up. Then life, the day job, a quick trip to the hospital, and (frankly) forgetfulness intervened, and I didn't work on creating something - anything - with the really great beads I had received from Krafty Max.


A sneak peek from last week


has turned into this bracelet:


Did you guess that's that was where I was going with it? Frankly, I had lots and lots of ideas, but this is where I landed. I'm really pleased -- even my husband looked at it and said "that's really cool!" High praise, indeed!

The pack included lots of gemstones and seed beads in blacks and greys, and the ocean jasper focal really appealed to me. I picked up on the shades of blue and purple in the donut, surrounded it with iolite and Czech glass, and echoed the purple and blue shades, deepened and enriched by the darker shades of seed beads, in the rest of the bracelet.


It's not completely finished in this photo. I'll be putting it onto a brass blank cuff, backing it with suede, and adding an edging in the same 8/o beads as I used around the focal donut. (See how I gave myself another blog post topic there?)

There were more gemstones in the pack that didn't become part of the bracelet (like, all of them aside from the focal). So I used the jasper rectangles, combined them with some sponge coral and cinnabar from my own stash, and came up with this necklace.


There's a really beautiful, deep red/orange vein running through some of the beads. That's what inspired the inclusion of the cinnabar and coral. I love the depth and detail in these beads.


Thanks, Max, for the really varied and rich springboard to dive off of for this challenge. It was fun! And since I had more materials than time to work with, I'll revisit what's left -- can't wait to see what comes from all of it! (Aha! Another blog post topic...)